British Food Journal Volume 53 Issue 1 1951

Abstract

The controls and queues of the past eleven years have confirmed and consolidated, I think, the conservatism of the British housewife in the matter of buying food. Butter is just national butter. Margarine is what the Minister of Food dictates. Cooking fat is—well, just cooking fat. Those who succumbed to the official boosting of whalemeat, snoek and brisling mostly wish that they had not. Those who were adventurous enough to spend 5s. or 6s. on cans of imported food labelled —apparently with the Minister's approval—with the words “ Sausages in brine ”, discovered that they had about 11 ounces of sausages in a pint or more of salt water. Could anything be more destructive of willingness to try something new? I am led to make these banal observations by what is happening in this country in the matter of quick‐frosted foods. There is now a National Association of wholesale distributors of these products, which is resolved to try to overcome, by suitable propaganda, the sales‐resistance of the British housewife; and, as a mere looker‐on, I wish them well. Close to my house, in a London suburb, I notice that quick‐frosted fruits and vegetables are on sale at the shops of a dairy firm, a grocer, a provision dealer and a fruiterer (all these are multiple shops), and also at a health food store. Some of the largest firms, including the Unilever mammoth, are now in this business, which is operated on a colossal scale in the United States. It would be boring to give many figures, but I learn that on January 1st, 1949, the stocks of these frozen foods in American warehouses, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, were as under: —

Citation

(1951), "British Food Journal Volume 53 Issue 1 1951", British Food Journal, Vol. 53 No. 1, pp. 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb011467